“ The sculptures that are taught in schools are really just
putting together found junk ,” says Manuel Jesus , a senior art director at
Brooklyn-based toy company , Art Asylum .
On the other hand he says , “ People at
his firm carve out photo-realistic figures every day.
Not that their workshops
actually resemble Bernini’s work .
Like most people devoted to action figures, the Asylum sculptors are more hip
and geeky than being refined and artsy .
When you go round their shops , you can
find lots of baseball caps , black T-shirts , goatees ,etc.. and the president
himself is one of those shrouded-in-mystery figures with a one-word name:
Digger . According to the company’s Website,
Digger “ plays by few rules ,” and considers his job title as an “affliction ,”
and spends half his time in Hong Kong “ tooling
around the mountains of mainland China , on his motorcycle and coming up with
on-the-fly variants that collectors love .”
But at least Digger has some small justifications for his semi-legendary existence . The
company, which he co-founded in 1996 with vice president Donna Soldano, had
quickly emerged as a major player in the world of action figures . It produces for KISS , Marvel , Eminem and the Star Trek
franchise , as well as a number of other properties .
For all the work that the Asylum does is far from being exciting . Realistic sculptures are painstakingly
in detail and, except for patterns for
spaceships and hero chest plates (which are made using Adobe Illustrators ) , most of them are
handmade ( made by hand ) .
To explain this process , Manuel Jesus , walked me through the creation of a
twelve-inch Hulk statuette which was commissioned by Marvel and was sculpted by one of the many Art Asylum’s freelancers , Meg Stone . It’s scheduled for a limited
release close to the launch of the movie .
